rocky mountain fiction writers

My husband loves horror movies. I’m not sure why, but if I had to guess, I’d say it has something to do with the anticipation and the adrenaline, that delicious feeling of knowing something is about to happen, but having no idea exactly when it will come or how.

I don’t like horror movies, but I do understand the allure of that state of heightened awareness and tingly uncertainty. Maybe that’s why I submitted my pages to Writer’s Idol at the Colorado Gold conference.

Here’s how it works. You sit down in a conference room, nervously clutching two sweaty, printed pages from your manuscript. As three editors take their seats at the head table, the moderator (Angie Hodapp, in this case) works the room, accepting pages from the brave and foolhardy. She takes her stack back to the podium, where she shuffles them as she introduces the panel. She says she’ll read each excerpt aloud, and the editors will raise their hands when they reach a point where they would stop reading. She won’t stop until she hits the end of the two pages or all three hands are raised.

Your heart races. You think you might be sick.

The moderator clears her throat and begins reading:

The basement of Quigg Street brewery was haunted by a two-bit con artist named Nat Riley—at least, so claimed the Denver Ghost Walk pamphlet I’d stuffed in my bag at the start of the tour.

Gulp. That would be the first line of my manuscript, folks. I was first. First! At least it was over quickly. Although…not that quickly.

Our panel consisted of:

J. Ellen Smith, publisher at Champagne Book Group

Cassiel Knight, senior editor at Champagne Book Group

Peter Senftleben, associate editor at Kensington Books

I watched them like a hawk while my excerpt was being read. Who needs horror movies when you can sit in a room and watch an editor’s face as they listen to your manuscript being read aloud? I’m not gonna lie. It was terrifying. Also? Editors have really great poker faces.

In the end, they all made it through my two pages, and the feedback wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be. Okay, so they did use the word “overwritten,” but I took comfort that it was preceded by “maybe a little.” And yes, they did say that my protagonist wasn’t apparent enough in the excerpt, but they tempered by adding that they liked the voice. But even when the comments stung, they were incredibly useful. I left the panel knowing exactly how to improve my opening scene and, better, excited about doing so.

Here’s the thing about Writer’s Idol: it wasn’t just about hearing the comments on my pages. I stayed all the way through to the bitter end, listening to every excerpt and internalizing all the feedback. Maybe I didn’t make a certain mistake in this novel, or on those particular pages, but that’s no guarantee I wouldn’t make it in the next one or I didn’t already make it in chapter three or chapter eighteen.

In the end, the advice came down to one basic thing: write the story. The story is the good bits. It’s not the sitting-around part, or the describing-the-characters part, or the gawking-at-the-scenery part. If you want to keep a reader’s attention, skip the boring throat-clearing small talk. Write the story.

I’m back with a few more gems from the RMFW Colorado Gold conference. You can read Part I, with brief notes from the craft workshops I attended, here. Today is all about the publishing industry.

From “Everything You Wanted to Know About Publishing (Now’s Your Time to Ask),” with Peter Senftleben: Self-published authors looking to break into traditional publishing really need to have sold around 20,000 copies. That being said, platform isn’t all that important for fiction writers just starting out. That can be built after a book is under contract. Also, even large publishers are looking to digital-only releases, especially with new authors, to build an audience before moving to print.

From “Editor/Agent Panel,” with Lucienne Diver, Kerri Buckley, Shannon Hassan, and Raelene Gorlinsky: Writing momentum expectations vary a lot by genre. Romance readers often expect three or more books per year from their authors. Fantasy and science fiction readers might be content with one book a year. From a career-management perspective, if you can’t write more than one book a year, you shouldn’t be writing in more than one genre.

From “Editor/Agent Panel,” with Margaret Bail, Elizabeth Copps, Susan Brower, and Jessica Renheim: Jessica Renheim, the only editor on this panel, said, “I work for a lot of great authors.” I wrote it down, because I thought that “for” was telling, as a lot of authors, especially early on, feel like they’re working for agents and editors. The agents pointed that they aren’t just there to negotiate contracts, either. Their job is to help authors with general career management.

I have two more sessions that I haven’t covered in these brief notes, but I think both of those are worthy of their own dedicated posts, so stay tuned!

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Before the Colorado Gold conference, RMFW offered a series of tips to get the most out of the experience. One suggestion that stood out to me was, “Attend the workshops.”

Apparently, for many people, going to conferences is all about the networking and socializing. I get it. Okay, I don’t really get it, but I’m willing to accept that it’s true. Me, though? I’m all about the workshops. I’ve always been way happier in a classroom than in a bar, and that’s probably never going to change.

I know I can’t be the only one, because just about every session I attended last weekend was packed to the gills. All in all, I sat in on eleven different workshops and panels, plus the three keynote speeches and my one-on-one pitch coaching session.

That’s a lot to take in over the course of three days, and it wouldn’t be fair to the presenters to regurgitate it all here, but I thought it would be fun to share just one or two nuggets from each session. I split my time between workshops on craft and those on the publishing industry, so I’ll post half my tidbits today and the other half tomorrow.

Ready? Let’s start with the craft workshops!

From “It’s Not What You Say: Body Language for Writers,” with Cassiel Knight: Only 7% of communication is conveyed with words. The rest comes from vocal tone/inflection and nonverbal body language. Surprisingly, the feet are the most honest part of the body. They’re furthest from our awareness and, thus, the least likely to be consciously controlled.

From “Dying to Be Here: Techniques of Murder and Mayhem,” with Mario Acevedo and Harriet Hamilton: You’re way, way more likely to be killed in a love triangle than by a pimp or prostitute. Also, poisonings are not nearly as common as Dame Agatha would have you believe.

From “Brain Sex,” with Jax Daniels: Men think linearly, women think holistically. This means that men are more likely to be plagued with tunnel vision, while women are more likely to be distracted by superfluous information. Writers can use this to create conflict between characters.

From “Deep-six the Stereotypes: Writing Characters from Another Culture,” with Rudy Ch. Garcia and Mario Acevedo: Brown does not equal brown, so try to find beta readers who closely match the profiles of characters you’re trying to write. You wouldn’t ask a Norwegian to confirm your characterization of a German, so don’t expect a Mexican to understand your Puerto Rican character.

From “From Here to There: An Alternative to Outlining,” with Carol Berg: You can write a tight and well-plotted story without knowing everything that happens before you start writing. The key is starting each scene with fleshed-out characters, a firm point of view, a starting point (here), and an ending destination (there).

From “The Joy of Writing Great Sex,” with Andrea Catalano: To write a great sex scene, craft it as if you’re writing to someone you want to seduce. Avoid shocking readers and taking them out of the story by writing to the expectations of your genre.

I know these tips are sort of all over the place, but that’s very much what it’s like to go from workshop to workshop at a conference. It’s a lot of information at once, all filed away to be sorted and integrated later. And there’s still more! Tomorrow, I’ll be back with some teasers from the industry panels I attended.

In the meantime, let me know what piqued your interest most in the comments!

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The real answer, of course, is I have no idea, but Colorado Gold starts tomorrow, so I’m figuring it out.

Here’s what’s in my bag:

Clothes, shoes, and toiletries. Dress code is business casual, so I have slacks and skirts, along with something to work out in, because I always have the best of intentions. I’m bringing heels and flats and running shoes. I have a whole suitcase to myself, so ALL THE SHOES.

Business cards. I love my new cards, which have both my personal info and my shop URL. If I’m going to be following Susan Spann’s Twitter challenge of meeting and remembering at least three new people a day, I’m going to need them.

A notebook and pens. I always have a notebook and pens, but these, specifically, are for note-taking during conference sessions.

The first chapter of my novel, printed out. I didn’t bring the whole novel, except on my laptop, but I thought it might be handy to have Chapter 1 in hard copy.

Books. Sure, it’s going to be a full weekend, but books.

My annotated schedule and session handouts. No wifi in the conference center and many of the sessions have digital-only handouts.

Healthy snacks. I started getting shipments from graze.com last week and they come in handy, single-serving packets, perfect for afternoon pick-me-ups.

Laptop. I’m kind of using it right now, but I’ll bring it.

Water bottle. Here in Colorado, we carry water bottles everywhere. It’s a thing.

Phone and earbuds. Always.

So…what have I forgotten? (Or just stay tuned next week for the inevitable “What I Wished I’d Packed For a Writers’ Conference.”)

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In just a short two and a half weeks, I’ll be heading off to the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference, a regional but well-established and well-recognized conference for writers. This will be my second time going and I’m looking forward to seeing Jennifer there, for her first time in attendance as I understand it. Last year was my first time ever attending a conference and now I’m addicted. Apparently, this is a common phenomenon in the writing world.

Last year was my first time and I met some people the that I’ve talked to on a daily basis since then, some weekly. A few of us formed a critique group that has since seen two of us go from unagented to agented, one of us have two successful book launches, and one of us even hit the New York Times Bestseller list.

I was lucky enough to meet Jennifer at a local book event and I have other local writer friends, as well as an innumerable amount online.

When I finally landed my agent, I sent so much loving thanks to all of them because I truly believe I wouldn’t have gotten here without them, regardless of how much time I spent writing or the quality of my storytelling.

Writing is no longer a lonely business now that we have access to thousands of other writers online and in our local communities and I’m thankful for that. In order to be successful writer in the current publishing world, it’s imperative to connect and lean on each other. Just like any successful business, no one thrives in a vacuum.

Here are some of the reasons I’ve come to depend on the writing community, and why you should too:

Emotional Support. If for no other reason, here’s why you need writers in your life: when you talk about how hard this life is, and how frustrated you are, and how you’re not sure if all this work is worth it, only other writers can say “I understand” and actually mean it. They tell you we all feel that way, that it is worth it, and to keep going. And when you finally hit that goal you’ve been working toward, they’re the first to celebrate your achievement…and they’re often the loudest.

Resources. I’m not sure if I would know what a query letter even was if I didn’t have other writers to point me in the right direction. Or how to outline. Or which book to read to learn how to outline. Spending time with writers who are at your stage in the process or further along are a great resource in themselves for knowing what the next steps are, and they’re always willing to share what they’ve learned to help you get there.

Feedback. Because there is no substitute for getting specific and educated feedback on your writing itself. My prose and storytelling grew by leaps and bounds once I started having other writers read my work. Reading other writers’ work is beneficial too because we often see the mistakes we make in others’ work easier than in our own.

Networking. Once you get to the point that you’re ready to put yourself out there, writers have already paved the way on blogs, with agents, with publishers, and with book stores. And they’re more than happy to team up with you on promotion or refer you to right people. In an industry that can often be intimidating to get into and hard to get your name out in, writer connections make it a lot easier.

Friendship. Who else in the world can sit across from you while you’re on your laptop and she’s on hers, and though you’re not talking to each other, you feel completely fulfilled in her company? A writer, that’s who. There’s this thing about writers that only other writers understand and it’s our commitment to our life’s passion. Often times, people who don’t have a passion for what they do don’t quite understand why our entire lives revolve around writing, why it’s our job and our hobby, why it’s what we do during all our “free time.” But writers do. And they even let us talk about it as much as we want.

As the conference gets ever closer, I look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones. These are the people who have pulled me up and cheered me on over the past ten years, and these are the people I know I can count on for the rest of my career. What does the writing community mean to you?

Jamie Raintree writes Women’s Fiction about women searching for truth in life and love. She is currently working on revisions of her first novel in preparation for submission to publishers. In the meantime, she blogs about her journey toward a well-balanced life and a career in publishing–her struggles and successes along the way. She lives in Northern Colorado with her husband and two young daughters and is a Workshop Coordinator for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. She is represented by Claire Anderson-Wheeler of Regal Literary. Find Jamie online at http://jamieraintree.com.